| The revival of CSKA took place only on paper The starting calendar matches of the Russian Championship coincided with the WNBA playoffs. Therefore, our leading clubs were forced to enter the national championship without several foreign players still involved in the overseas league. However, this is not a problem for the leaders - both the current champion VBM-SSAU (Samara) and the capital's Dynamo, which had noticeably strengthened in the summer, debuted with confident victories.
The original 2004/05 Super League format included 14 teams. The schedule of games had already been drawn up and approved, from which the team managers, fans and television crews based their plans, planning to show the most interesting matches, but the calendar had to be redone in a hurry. The Russian Basketball Federation stepped on the same rake as before the start of last season, when it tentatively included the incompetent “Khimik” (Engels) in the men’s championship roster, and then canceled his application.
This time the supposedly resurgent CSKA became the phantom. There were indeed discussions about creating a new army team, but the team was not actually recreated. Nevertheless, the head of the RFB Sergei Chernov hastened to fill the vacancy that had arisen in the Euroleague with CSKA’s application and included the club in the super league calendar. Although there were no documentary grounds for this - just promises in words. As a result, it turned out that Chernov violated the procedure for admitting new members to the elite, created by him and approved by the super league council. Nothing bad happened, of course. When it became completely clear that the idea of reviving CSKA had failed, the calendar was simply changed - RFB employees are no strangers to doing this, this happens almost every season. The place of the phantom in the Euroleague was taken by the capital's Dynamo. But there were not the most pleasant explanations to be had with the television crew - the broadcast of the match CSKA - UMMC (Ekaterinburg) was scheduled for October 28.
Dynamo conducted the most fruitful selection in the off-season. After failure last season (eighth place), the “blue and white” had nowhere to retreat. Five participants of the Athens Olympics were called up to the team. These are Russian national team players Oksana Rakhmatulina, Elena Karpova, Natalya Vodopyanova, American Sue Bird and Maria Samorukova, a graduate of Soviet basketball who competed at the Summer Games for Greece. However, Bird, who is currently playing in the NBA playoffs for Seattle, is ready to arrive only in December. An iconic figure returned to Dynamo - Barcelona 1992 Olympic champion center Helen Shakirova. However, even a year ago the club had both star players and expensive foreign players. But neither Alexander Kharchenkov nor Fabio Fossato, who replaced him as head coach, were able to properly manage a worthy selection of basketball players. Surely the famous Belarusian specialist Semyon Khalipsky and Konstantin Milovidov will do it much better, because they know a lot about their business.
Mentors were changed not only at Dynamo - a number of other clubs also made changes in the coaching staff. Only two people remained from the once formidable and stellar UMMC team, but Vladimir Koloskov, who knows how to work productively with any material, returned to the post of helmsman of the team in Yekaterinburg. The Ural girls proved that they should never be discounted in the first match, defeating Slavyanka away in Chelyabinsk - 96:60. Among the club's newcomers, we should highlight the Brazilian Iziane Castro and the candidate for the Russian national team, center Olga Podkovalnikova, who previously played for VBM-SSAU (Samara).
Volzhanki, which owns the championship title, the World Cup and the Russian Cup, remains the base club of the national team. To achieve success in the Euroleague, head coach Igor Grudin decided to resort to the services of European players - Frenchwoman Edwige Lawson, who plays on the back line, and Belgian Anne Wouters. The first is already in Russia, the second has been on the New York Liberty injured list from July to the present. It is not yet known where the Belgian’s NBA teammate Elena Baranova will play. For her team overseas, everything was already over - New York lost in the semifinal series to Connecticut. The second contender for the NBA championship title was determined last night in the third match between Sacramento and Seattle, for which two newly minted dynamos play - Bird and Czech Kamilla Vodichkova.
From October 12 to 17, Samara and St. Petersburg will host the World League with the participation of our VBM-SSAU, Baltic Star and six other foreign clubs. The St. Petersburg players were strengthened by Natalya Zasulskaya, the best basketball player in Europe of the 90s, who returned to her native land. Although our youth and junior teams consistently occupy the highest places in the international arena, veterans are still held in high esteem. In Novosibirsk, the leaders of the local Dynamo-Energia considered it beneficial to use the services of another winner of the Barcelona Olympics, 40-year-old point guard Irina Minkh. She spent more than ten years in foreign championships, and now, as a player-coach, she passes on her invaluable experience to young people. Minkh herself is in perfect order - in the meeting with Dynamo Kursk she scored eight points and helped her team start the championship with a victory - 70:61. Ksenia YAKOVLEVA |
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